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The Septum Deviation
"The Septum Deviation" is the ninth episode of the eighth season of the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory. The episode aired on Thursday, November 13, 2014. Summary Sheldon worries about Leonard getting a routine surgery, while Raj has to deal with the divorce of his parents on the eve of their 40th Anniversary. Extended Plot Sheldon and Amy are playing a game where Sheldon has to guess that he is Nikola Tesla. Amy calls him an under-appreciated genius and Sheldon is sure that it is himself. There is a car named after him and Sheldon thinks that it's the Mini-Cooper. Finally he gets it when Amy calls him a poor man's Sheldon Cooper. Leonard and Penny come in from shopping and having gone to the physician|doctor. Leonard had a camera shoved up his nose and was diagnosed that needs surgery because he has a deviated septum. Sheldon is appalled and doesn't want Leonard to have the surgery. Leonard wants to go through it because he can't breathe and he snores loudly. Sheldon doesn't want him to take the risk since he does not have a life threatening condition. Amy points out that he always complains about his snoring; however, Sheldon got used to it after five or six years. The noise helps Sheldon sleep. End of story, Leonard is going through it. "Fine," replies Sheldon. Amy picks up a playing piece that says Jay-Z. Sheldon describes as someone famous for not undergoing unnecessary nose surgery that leaves him disfigured. He doesn't really know who it is or even if it is a typo. That night Sheldon is watching Leonard snore in bed when Leonard suddenly wakes up. He admits that the snoring helps him sleep. Leonard calls him the "Albino Bogeyman". Sheldon is insulted since he spent two hours in Leonard's closet waiting for him to fall asleep. That which is bothering Sheldon is if the surgery is successful, his snoring is gone. Or if he dies in surgery, the snoring is gone. Sheldon is still worried about the surgery. One in seven hundred thousand people die during surgery from the anesthesia. Leonard says that it worked out for the other 699,999. Sheldon finds Leonard a "half-glass full" kind of guy and he's going to miss that. Raj having dinner with Howard and Bernadette at their apartment and is fretting over finding a gift for his parents' fortieth wedding anniversary. Howard can't imagine being married to someone for forty years to which Bernadette says "Not anymore." Raj thinks about making them a gift like the drink Beverage coaster|coasters with a picture of his face he gave Howard and Bernadette. Bernadette sarcastically quips that Howard will get the coasters when they divorce. The next day, Leonard arrives home and finds Sheldon is at his whiteboard. Sheldon has been considering everything that could possibly go wrong with Leonard’s surgery and has the odds down to one in three hundred. His factors include an allergic reaction to latex gloves, the surgeon might have an epileptic seizure, driving to the hospital, falling down the apartment stairs and an asteroid hitting the earth. Just ask a dinosaur about that last one! Sheldon thinks that he is smart enough to survive it. Leonard appreciates his concern, but assures him that he is not going to die. The operation isn't for another week so he tells Sheldon he’ll reconsider. Just as a last note, if Leonard has it in Nicaragua during the monsoon season, he can guarantee his demise. Howard shows up at Raj's apartment to hang out and Raj is on the phone with his father. Howard has found a fencing school that has a Jedi class. Raj is not interested since he has learned that his parents have separated|split up. Raj is happy as long as his parents are happy. He'll celebrate the holidays in two different places. Raj breaks down saying that now he comes from a broken home. Leonard and Penny are in the hospital waiting room filling out paperwork. Leonard tells Penny that he told Sheldon they were going Human swimming|swimming in the public swimming pool. Sheldon is eating in Amy's car figuring out how much urine would be in the water of a public pool. And he is eating french toast sticks getting Amy's dashboard sticky. He wonders how he could go since he doesn't have his swimming t-shirt which was destroyed last year when they cut him out of it after getting sunburned. He thinks that Amy sounds odd, though she counters with everyone thinks she is odd. After pestering her, she admits that Leonard got an earlier date for surgery and was having it that morning. Sheldon then insists that Amy take him to the hospital. He is his best friend and he could never forgive himself to be at his bedside if something goes wrong and he couldn't tell him "I told you so." Amy and Sheldon find Penny is in the waiting room who looks uncomfortable after seeing them. Quietly Penny says that they had a real nice swim. Sheldon retorts that she has already gotten treated for her bottom burns from her pants being on fire. Penny complains to Amy that she had to tell him, but she was distracted because he wore extra baby powder. Leonard is still in the operating room and Penny is sure that everything will work out. She pats his hand and finds it still sticky from the syrup. Amy wants to change the subject to something else and Sheldon asks Penny if she and Leonard discussed funeral arrangements. Bernadette and Howard come by Raj's office to bring him some muffins. Bernadette keeps making muffin jokes and Howard tells her that they're not that funny. Raj is feeling better and admits the news was harder on him than he thought. Bernadette understands as she would be devastated if her parents split up. Howard says that her father barely speaks to her mother. Bernadette says at least her father stuck around unlike his. Raj concludes that they just kept things bottled up instead of talking about the things that bothered them and it got to be too much in the end. Back in the waiting room, Penny mentions the teddy bear and balloon that Sheldon brought him. It's not for Leonard. Amy got it for Sheldon since he stubbed his toe in a revolving door on the way in the hospital when he kept going around and around (he got distracted by the lobby's plant). Penny also asks him to not give Leonard a hard time when he is done since he will not be feeling good. Sheldon promises nothing since Leonard took unnecessary risks and Deception|deceived him. Penny explained that that was because he was being a pain in the ass, which he was being since he felt like the only one who was concerned about Leonard's well-being. She cares because she is going to spend the rest of her life with him. "And I'm not?" shouts Sheldon as he disturbs Penny. Then the waiting room shakes due to an earthquake tremor which startles Sheldon. He wonders if that could turn a deviated septum into a lobotomy. Then when the Electric light|lights go out, Sheldon gets up quickly and heads for the operating room running into the glass on the door. He falls to the ground holding his nose in pain. Howard and Bernadette are in their apartment sitting at the Table (furniture)|table talking more about marriage. She doesn't want things to remain bottled up like with Raj's parents and wonders if there is something about her that bothers him. First he thinks he is in a Trap (tactic)|trap and then he tells Bernadette that she is just too beauty|beautiful at times. Instead as in Howard's therapy class, they start telling each other what they like. It starts out find and then it degenerates into what they don't like, but in eerie positive statements. Back in the apartment Sheldon and Leonard are in their robes on the couch both with bandages on their nose. Penny is taking their picture for this year's Christmas card. It was revealed that despite the earthquake and minor power outage, the surgery still went through without any trouble. Leonard didn't want him there, but does remorse|apologize to his best friend for not telling him. Sheldon still lists all the post-operative problems that could plague Leonard. Penny says that Sheldon is never going to leave Leonard, though Amy insists that he will move out eventually. Penny quips that he first has to learn how to use a door. Leonard is teasing Sheldon telling him nasally "You wuv me." Raj walks in on them having a round-about argument and says that his mom has already started dating someone. She was probably doing that while she was married. She also has bought the book "Eat, Pray, Love" and also set his father's car on fire. Howard mentions that they were telling themselves about all the things they love about each other. Raj remembers that they had done that together at couples therapy which shocks Bernadette. Finally, after both guys have recovered a bit Sheldon is unpacking the urn he bought for Leonard, in case the worst happened. Penny wants him to send it back; however, Sheldon got it engraved, making that not possible. "Here lie the ashes of Leonard Hofstadter. He thought he was right, but his roommate knew better." He also got one for himself which said "I'm with stupid." Credits * Guest starring: ** None * Teleplay: Eric Kaplan, Steve Holland & Tara Hernandez * Story: Steven Molaro, Bill Prady & Maria Ferrari Notes *'Title Reference:' Leonard goes into the hospital for a deviated septum operation. *Taping date: October 28, 2014 *This episode was watched by 16.09 million people with a rating of x.x (adults 18-49). *Total viewers including DVR users 22.51 million. *The Big Bang Theory was ranked #1 for the week ending 9 November 2014. *This episode aired in Canada on November 13, 2014 with 4.217 million viewers with a weekly ranking of #1. *In Australia, it aired on February 17, 2015 with 0.96 million viewers. *Episode transcript https://bigbangtrans.wordpress.com/series-8-episode-09-the-septum-deviation/ * Chuck Lorre's vanity card http://www.chucklorre.com/index.php?p=471 Critics *Jesse Schedeen of IGN: For the second week in a row, Sheldon was forced to acknowledge his attachment to someone close to him, though with a more humorous angle this time around. Any episode that forces Sheldon to deal with feelings and emotions is usually a winner...(As) Raj dealt with the unexpected news that his parents were getting a divorce after 45 years of marriage...(this) development wound up impacting Howard and Bernadette far more... What started as Howard trying to avoid falling into a verbal trap shifted to the two trading sweet compliments, and then to passive-aggressive jabs, and finally to outright insults...This episode might not have reached the heights of last week's stellar installment, but it was plenty good on its own merits. * Dhruv Rao of The DR Club (B): "Admittedly, I liked how the writers portrayed Sheldon's deep care for Leonard and his obsessive nature simultaneously. The various punchlines from Sheldon are ever present, and they render the entire plot a lot more funnier. Furthermore, Penny and Leonard's relationship seems to be strengthening, a sign that the writers will soon discard their plot lines and focus on the other characters in unstable relationships. That is my educated guess after watching HIMYM side-step Marshall and Lily as murals in the ninth season. Another positive element of the episode is the balance between geek and sophistication, as the B-plot advances Raj's personal life: his parents are splitting up. The timing is key here: we hadn't seen them in a long time, and the last we saw them, they were unhappy. The writers once again took advantage of their given situation and made Raj's parents split, and gave the reason of bottled up feelings. The various cameos of the Koothrapallis makes sense now, and so does Raj's unhappiness. The line that caught me the most was that he would have to celebrate Diwali twice: a strong oxymoron. The continuity of the series has considerably improved since its early days, and that's what matters the most here..." *IMDb user reviews http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3823248/reviews?ref_=tt_ql_7 Trivia * First appearance of Bernadette at Caltech since "The Thespian Catalyst" (S4E14). * Leonard previously mentioned in "The Griffin Equivalency" (S2E4) that he has sleep apnea. * Once again Sheldon marched right into a hospital without being worried about the germs in it as he did in "The Engagement Reaction" (S4E23). * With this episode, Raj joins Leonard and Howard in having divorced parents. * Raj's parents have been married for nearly 40 years, thus suggesting that they got married in late 1974. They only stayed because of their children and they got married for the wrong reasons because of their marriage arrangement. * Neither of the characters in either story line shares any scenes with each other in this episode (i.e. Leonard, Sheldon, Penny, and Amy don't share any scenes or dialogue with Howard, Raj, and Bernadette and vice versa). This happens again in "The Space Probe Disintegration" (S8E12). * In "The Holographic Excitation" (S6E5), Bernadette also cracks a "feeling blue" joke, but in that case it is because Howard is dressed as a smurf. * When Jim Parsons hit the glass door hard in the dark, he hit his cheek and the side of his nose instead of hitting his nose hard the Sheldon was supposed to have. * Sheldon says that he has gotten used to Leonard's snoring after 5 or 6 years but in the episode "The Einstein Approximation" (S3E14: about 5 before this episode) Penny says that Leonard does not snore. ** In addition, Sheldon states in "The 43 Peculiarity" that Leonard is a good sleeper (proving that he doesn't snore), and that he's better than "some snoring guy with a fridge full of lousy grapes". * Sheldon references the extinction of the dinosaurs approximately 66 million years ago, presumed due to the Chixculub asteroid strike. He also references the survival of mammalian ancestor}] species of that same event, believed due to their smaller size, higher intelligence, and superior adaptability all giving them an edge during the Category:Season 8 Category:Leonard-Penny Engaged Category:Howard Category:Sheldon Category:Amy Category:Bernadette Category:Penny Category:Leonard Category:Raj Category:Howard-Bernadette Category:Shamy Category:Hospital Category:Penny has a job Category:Raj-Emily Together Category:Transcripts Category:The Big Bang Theory Category:Penny's Short Hair Category:Raj Talks Without Alcohol Category:No Stuart appearance (Season 8) Category:Episodes Category:Howard and Raj Category:Raj episodes Category:Autumn episodes